Of Harry and Harry
by joe6991
Summary: What does it take to end a war? For Harry Potter, the last throw of the dice would count for all. Bargains have been struck and the road to Hell has been paved with the regret of the guilty. A war may end, but a new one will begin...
1. Prologue: The Laws of Magic

**_Disclaimer:_**_The characters and anything you recognise do not belong to me. The kickass story you're about to read probably does in some way, but no profit is being made, as it is simply for viewing pleasure. Yippe-ki-yay!_

**_A/N:_**_ Yeehaw, folks, here we go again. Readers of my other stories may find something they like in this one, too. Straight of the bat, this is a Harry Potter/Dresden Files crossover. It will be told from the alternating viewpoints of Harry Potter and Harry Dresden, and a few cameo viewpoints where appropriate. At this stage, you don't have to have read the Dresden Files to get into the swing of things, but it sure won't hurt, as they are excellent works of urban fantasy. Seriously, they rock. At the moment, **Wastelands of Time**, is the other Potter story I'm working on, and both that and this will be updated probably alternately. I intend to finish **Wastelands **by early 2010, so nay worry about that. Let's get underway._

_Thanks for reading - please review,_

_Joe_

_

* * *

  
_

_**Of Harry and Harry**_

_Prologue – The Laws of Magic_

**Thou shalt not kill by use of magic.**

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

**Thou shalt not transform others.**

"_What was left when Potter and Voldemort were done with each other could no longer be called _human. _It… it was awful. Awful and terrifying and all kinds of insane."_

"_What did you do?"_

"_What did any of us do? We ran. We ran _screaming_."_

**Thou shalt not invade the mind of another.**

"_Legilimens!"_

**Thou shalt not enthral another.**

"_Imperio!"_

**Thou shalt not reach beyond the borders of life.**

"_What the Dark Lord has done is an abomination. The dead have risen – the spirit world is in turmoil and the Nevernever crumbles. God! He made himself _fucking _immortal by killing the innocent."_

"_Yes… but what Harry Potter has done is far worse."_

**Thou shalt not swim against the Currents of Time.**

"_But if I could go back!"_

"_There is no going back… we were damned in the past and we're damned now. All that's left is _forward._ You _have_ to know this."_

**Thou shalt not seek beyond the Outer Gates.**

"…_They were both guilty of this, in the end, the Dark Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter. They dared and lost – and so we all lost. In the end it took the strength of another Harry, of Wizard Dresden, to destroy them both._"

*~*~*~*

Harry traced his fingers down her naked back, her soft skin the colour of smooth cream in the moonlight. His glasses reflected the sparks of a million – a hundred million – stars beyond count. It was a quiet world, atop of the Astronomy Tower and in the early hours of the morning. He raked his nails down her sides and smiled distantly at the small, pleased moan she made beneath him.

"Do that again..." she whispered.

Her body was _so_ warm, so human, and – as opposed to the lifetime of scars he had gathered in seventeen short years – so flawless. Harry moved his hands down to her hips and then ran them fast back up her sides until he cupped the sides of her breasts. She shivered in the best way.

"I needed to tell you something, but it doesn't seem important anymore," Harry said. It was important, though, and devastating. "How come the sight of you naked makes everything else, even the war, seem like such a distraction?"

She laughed. "Imagine that, would you? The great Harry Potter, the Chosen One, the Dark Lord's bane and a hero to thousands, undone by a pair of tits."

"In my defence, they are really good tits." Harry slipped his hands underneath her and covered two hard nipples with his palms. "Yep, I'm thinking we should get you out of these pants, too. Bit of ass does it for me, as well."

"Really? Trying your luck, Mr. Potter?"

"As always, this could be our last night alive."

She snorted. "Do you use that line on all the girls?"

Harry offered a sad smile – a smile with the tempered grace of tragedy. "Hey, it's true. I've got all the Dark wizards from here to bloody Australia after the price on my head. Not to mention the king-high bastard of the lot, Voldemort."

"Five hundred thousand galleons is an awful lot of gold," she said, squirming under Harry's touch. "Oh... stop that!"

"Never." Harry slipped one of his hands down across her stomach, to the waistband of her jeans, and worked on the button and zip. "Angle's all wrong..."

"What was it you wanted to tell me?"

The button couldn't be worked upside down and one-handed. "Where's my damn wand? I'll charm the pants of you yet."

"Merlin, is this all it takes to disarm Harry Potter? I guess we're all doomed if Voldemort transfigures himself a pair of tits."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

Harry did. He sat astride her on a thick woollen blanket, on the edge of the crenulated balcony overlooking the dark and silent Hogwarts grounds. This was the highest point in the castle, an outlook sealed away behind a door that was firmly locked. Confident and sure, Harry gently turned her over beneath him, his breath catching at the sight of her naked in the moonlight, gazing back at him with lips as full and red as strawberries, with eyes as dangerous as curse light.

He kissed her, tasting the stolen bottle of Dumbledore's aged wine on her tongue. His heart raced, his blood rushed through him. He set back to work on her jeans.

"You're hands are so cold," she said.

Harry blinked and held back a sigh at those words. _Cold? As cold as Winter, sweetheart._ "It's just the air up here."

"Hmm... Here, let me help." In one deft movement she had her jeans unzipped. "Honestly, Harry."

"Thank you. Hey, you're wearing _black_ silk underwear?" He paused. "You planned to work your charms on me tonight, huh?"

She giggled. "I may have heard a rumour from Dumbledore that he expected you back in the castle tonight. Where did you go anyway?" Harry shrugged. "And you brought the wine and blanket, mister, no doubt expecting to get that little wand of yours _polished._"

"Little?" Harry feigned offence. "It's not the length of the wand, baby, it's the magic in the stick."

"Ha. Ha." She rolled her eyes, brining her arms up to wrap around Harry's neck. "Can you promise me something?"

"Uh-oh."

"I'm being serious."

"Fine. I promise I won't come in your mouth."

"No! You dirty..." She slapped Harry, not hard enough to sting, and then ran her slim hand back through his unruly hair. "Promise me you won't keep too many secrets from me, okay? I know there's a lot you can't tell me, because of the war, but important things... things that may, that may stop you from coming back here one day. You'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

The light from the heavens was not enough to hide the dark cast that fell over Harry's face for just a moment, just for a fraction of a heartbeat. Thoughts rushed through his mind, thoughts of endless blizzards and a man crucified in ice. A man he had killed. _Why do the good feelings have to cost so much?_ There was madness in those thoughts, of that he was sure.

But did it matter anymore? He had made his choice, defied Dumbledore and Voldemort both, and all that mattered was he had found a way to end it. To destroy all the Horcruxes and the devil himself in one last attack.

"I promise," said Harry, because it was the right thing to say.

"Good. Mind your glasses." She reached down and pulled his shirt off over his head. "Are you going to finish taking my pants off or what?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And while you're down there, Harry, put that cheeky tongue of yours to work."

Harry grinned and the next hour was spent in a blur of raw passion, of youth on fire. The stars and the moon gazed down upon Hogwarts with perfect indifference, as the two atop the castle's highest point took a few moments to become one. It was hard, it was fiercely fast and achingly slow, as hard as it was soft... and then it was over. As all good things must come to some sort of end, so did Harry.

Afterwards, she lay in his arms and Harry held her close against him with his cold hands. There was always silence after good sex, a comfortable kind of silence, as passions relaxed – relented – and the feeling of being content spread like the last of the summer roses.

"Not a bad effort, really," she said, smirking. "Yeah I'll keep you around a bit longer."

"I'm going away again tomorrow. Not for long."

She sighed. "Is that what you wanted to tell me? I could've guessed as much from the way you and Dumbledore were in cahoots over dinner. You going to tell me where?"

"Nowhere I can't come back from." Harry shrugged and ran his fingers in slow circles around her belly button. "See about a silver cup. And that wasn't what I wanted to tell you."

"Oh?"

Harry paused and took a deep breath. _Here goes..._ "I've fallen in love with you, Daphne."

Daphne tensed and then shifted in his arms. Harry loosened his grip so she could sit up, a curtain of her messed-up blonde hair falling down over her face, as she regarded him. It would've been easier fighting an army of Dark wizards than trying to read the look on her face.

"Do you mean that?" she asked.

"No truer words ever spoken." Harry brushed her hair back behind her shoulder, framing her face in the half-light of the moon. "We've had a _helluva_ two years together, you know. Kept me going ever since that slaughter in the Department of Mysteries." _When I ended up in the Nevernever for the first time..._

Daphne looked troubled. No, worse, she looked close to tears. _Tears?_ Not in all the time he had known her had Harry ever thought words, even _those_ words, could make Daphne Greengrass cry.

"Why did you say that?" she asked. A war of emotion rippled across her face. "You would never have said that before... before when you knew you were coming back." Now she looked angry – furious. "You promised to tell me, so tell me! What's got you _loving me_ all of a sudden, Harry? What have you done? What... what are you _going_ to do?"

"End it," Harry said. As simple as that. As if he wasn't talking about the darkest war in the history of the Wizarding World. As if... as if he had nine lives to waste and a death wish. "I'm going to end it."

Daphne took a moment. "...How?" It was the last thing she wanted to ask.

Harry turned away from her and looked out over the side of the tower, out over the Forbidden Forest, silhouetted against the night. He looked further than that, at futures uncertain and battles yet to come. Daphne shivered in spite of herself. She knew that look in Harry's eyes well, and it scared her half to death. It was a look that could face down a Dark Lord, that could stare true evil in the eye and laugh. A look that could rival the greatest wizards of the age, even Dumbledore.

It was the look of a man not afraid to die.

Harry shook his head and his eyes found Daphne's again. "I can't say, sweetheart. You understand."

"Does Dumbledore know?"

Harry laughed. "Merlin, no! He suspects quite a bit, and in his own way he's pretty close to the truth." _Too close? No...._ "In other ways he has no idea what's to come. None of them will see it coming. That's why it's going to work, and afterwards we can disappear together for a year... or more... somewhere warm, somewhere _away_ from magic."

"You terrify me, sometimes, Harry," Daphne said, shaking her head. "You must know that."

Harry knew it. He scared himself, _sometimes_, and more than enough times for him to question his own sanity. The price he had paid and the power he had gained recently were testament enough to that.

_Was there time to go back?_ he wondered. Time to undo the contract he had made. It was all good and well to promise Daphne the world once he fought and _destroyed_ Voldemort, but would he have any freedom beyond that impossible task? He had dabbled with magic beyond anything he understood, or _could _understand, in a world that was alien and with creatures that could look human but were something... else.

"Harry."

"Yes?" He knew what was coming, and dear Merlin, but the words could break him, as well.

"I love you, too, Harry Potter."

Why did that feel so much like saying goodbye?

*~*~*~*


	2. Chapter 1: To Hell With It

**_Disclaimer:_**_ You don't fuck around with the infinite._

_**A/N:** A prologue AND a chapter on the same day - ain't I a peach._

_

* * *

  
_

_**Act I – I Am Here to Kill Grief Itself**_

_**Chapter One – To Hell With It**_

It felt like saying goodbye because it was goodbye.

A torrent of liquid flame burnt across the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The flame licked at the walls of the castle, flowing up the outer stone shell of the old school and melting the window glass in its frames.

The flame spread quickly, alive and devastating. It had washed clear across the surface of the lake, creating great torrents of superheated steam. Yet even the cool, deep waters of the forgotten loch could not quench the resolve of this fire. It danced amongst the trees of the Forbidden Forest, slick like oil on water, and was silent – so very silent.

Harry Potter stood at the heart of the inferno.

The flames surged around him, burying him to his knees in what was essentially magically-charged super napalm. _Hellfire. _He stood in the epicentre of the fire as if it were water, as if he were wading across a river. His eyes reflected the red-hot blaze and did not blink. A stink of burnt matches and rotten eggs poisoned the air surrounding the castle.

_Sulphur_, Harry thought. It was a strange grin that bared his teeth.

"_What have you done, Potter?_" Lord Voldemort hovered above the reaching flames, utilising that annoying ability of his to fly without a broom. A cloud of utter, seething darkness flowed beneath the hem of his robes.

His Death Eaters had fled or been consumed. Rowle and Yaxley were ash in the wind, for sure, although Bellatrix may have escaped with the rest… Harry would deal with them soon.

"Done, Voldemort?" Harry laughed, his eyes wide and _wild_. "You better get used to this heat, 'cause I'm sending you straight to Hell."

The wand in Harry's hand smoked – the wood blisteringly hot. Yet his hands were cold. His entire body was freezing. Cold was good, though, cold was _power_. The flames surged up on his left, obscuring his view of Voldemort, and an arc of pure white fire blazed overhead. There were screams in that fire. Screams of demons yet to come.

They rose from all around – from within the flame and beyond. Creatures of pure seething heat, with burning coals for eyes, reared up out of the river and _screeched_, shattering the higher windows of the castle, before falling back into the inferno.

"It's coming!" Harry laughed. "And, Voldemort – It. Is. _Hungry_…"

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

The old favourite. Harry stepped up out of the flame and onto a bridge of ice that formed beneath his boots. Pure white frost that refused to succumb to the damning heat of the flames. And why should it? The fires of Hell were no match for the power of the Winter Knight.

The greasy green light of the Killing Curse was absorbed by the river of liquid flame. Harry brandished his wand before him, freezing the air, and rose on a set of crystal steps until he was level with the Dark Lord.

"You've changed, Harry Potter," Voldemort said. He sounded unnerved – uncertain in his arrogance.

More demons came now, screaming up out of the fire. Hideous creatures of misery and regret, burning and burning. They swarmed beneath Harry and Voldemort hungry and desperate. They fed on souls, dealt in universes, and despised the living. Their screams were tortured, agonising, yet Harry could sense their purpose… they were waiting. Always waiting.

Harry reached into the pocket of his jacket and removed a small silver cup. He tossed it through the air at Voldemort, who caught it with a flick of his wand so that it hovered between them above the blanket of demonic fire. "Look familiar?"

Voldemort reeled. It was Hufflepuff's Cup. The last of his Horcruxes.

"And with that damned snake dead, you're down to your last card." Harry smirked. "You know, leaving pieces of your soul lying around is possibly the dumbest fucking move you've ever made. There's a whole other world of magic out there that bargains in souls, Voldemort, and it's coming to collect on yours."

Voldemort raged. "You speak of the Nevernever…" He joined the dots. "This lake of fire… you used _my_ soul fragment to link Hogwarts to the Nevernever, at the cost of…" Sheer tempered hatred rippled across the Dark Lord's face. "_Avada Kedavra! AVADA KEDAVRA!"_

The twin lights of death closed the distance between Harry and Voldemort fast, yet not fast enough. The rising flames reached a crescendo, the world drew in a terrible breath, and a fountain of white-hot light exploded beneath the pair of them. Thin cords of golden fire pierced the hovering silver cup, which shrieked acrid black smoke before being incinerated, and then struck Voldemort with all the fury of magic – _true magic_ – unleashed.

Harry dived out of the way before the curses could strike him. He fell through fierce heat, the power of his bargain with the Winter Court cooling the air about him as he fell. He landed hard on another bridge of ice as Voldemort screamed in untold agony.

The beast rose up behind the Dark Lord. A creature of shadow and flame, a monster bred in one of the darkest corners of the universe and in the farthest reaches of the Nevernever. It was huge, a monolithic presence of living fire. Wiry horns twirled out of its head, broken and ragged. It must have been a hundred feet high – more. Its shadow cast the castle into darkness.

A deep grumbling emanated from within the beast as Voldemort fought with the thin beams of pure fire that pierced his body, holding him in place, nailing him to a cross. He was to be sacrificed it seemed, to the dark gods that existed on the edge of the Nevernever and the Outer Gates.

_It's not an Outsider,_ Harry thought. _But it's only a breath away…_

That deep grumbling from within the beast was laughter, Harry realised with a jolt of true fear. Voldemort, to his credit, still raged in the grip of the hellfire. Still desperately clung to his smoking wand. Jets of random curse light burst from the tip, scattering harmlessly against the massive fiery chest of the beast.

Its jaw fell open and the flame at the heart of the creature was like looking into the sun. The sun at night.

Even the protection of Winter was not enough to stop the wave of heat that washed over Harry. It was enough to save his life, to leave his exposed skin burnt, but without his link to the Court he would have been incinerated.

Voldemort was flayed alive before the might of the beast bearing down upon him.

Harry laughed – and screamed – Harry wept as the beast consumed the man who had murdered his parents. It surged up above Voldemort and then came crashing down, its giant maw open wide, and devoured him whole.

The Dark Lord was destroyed.

Several things happened very quickly after that.

All at once the flames flickered and died.

The fires receded faster than they had appeared. In a rush of heat and light the fire fled up and into the gap left by Voldemort. It left in its wake scorched earth, layers of ash inches thick, yet _all_ the fire disappeared. The trees in the forest stopped burning, the smoke rising above the wood in a heavy cloud, and the lake ceased sizzling.

All that remained of the link he had forged was a circle of swirling dark light in the centre of the field, below where Voldemort had been consumed. It was barely five feet across, yet it was this portal that all the flame had flowed from, that the beast had risen from. It was still there, a glaring gap in the reality of the world. It would collapse in on itself soon enough.

Harry found his feet in the aftermath and stood in relative disbelief. He had done it. It was over, and he had won. In no way did it feel real, feel _done_. For all the long years of his short life he had been building toward this point, this victory, and as such the moment was beyond reckoning.

"I win…" he whispered into the near-silent air. Through the smoke a twilight sky watched the world from overhead, and Harry stood alone on a battlefield of ash and smoke. "It's done."

_But at what cost?_ The lower levels of Hogwarts were blackened beyond recognition. Harry hoped Dumbledore and the other professors had gotten the students up one of the towers. The massive mahogany doors of the Entrance Hall had been burnt clear away. Harry could see the grand staircase beyond, and a figure rushing down to meet him.

Reality came crashing down hard. He had won. He was alive. _Dear Merlin…_

The Winter Court was going to hang him for this.

He had tipped the balance of power in his favour, against the wishes of the Winter Lady and the Queen. He had directly disobeyed the Fae and upset the balance both here and in the Nevernever between the two Courts. Harry honestly hadn't expected to live, but he had, and now there would be hell to pay.

Not literally… as that had already been done. He absently rubbed his chest, staring at the softly spinning portal into the Nevernever. He felt a pain in his heart, like a jagged hook pulling him toward the gateway to Hell.

Why was his scar still burning?

*~*~*~*

It was Albus Dumbledore that found him first amongst the ash.

Clearing a path through the debris with his wand, Albus found Harry sitting dishevelled – yet relatively unhurt – on a block of melting ice, glaring at a spinning portal of energy that shook the old professor to his very core.

"Oh, Harry," Albus said. It was an awful sadness that broke his voice. "You don't know what you have done."

"I've ended a war," Harry said without turning to face him. "Why isn't it closing? It should be gone by now. _He's_ gone."

Albus had seen Voldemort's downfall from above the unimaginable heat of the fire that had turned his school grounds to dust. Harry had indeed ended it – but at the cost of more than he knew. There were old laws, old truces, that Albus had kept in check since the Second World War. The White Council, the other world of magic – the larger world – was going to come down like an iron hammer on the Wizarding World for this transgression.

"You should have come to me with this, Harry." Albus tried to keep the slow anger out of his voice. He knew he had failed when Harry spun to face him, his face burnt bright red and his eyes still reflecting the fires of ruthless damnation he had called into the world.

"There was no way I could ever kill him in a duel, Dumbledore." Harry was rubbing his chest. A thin trickle of blood cut down across his forehead and over the bridge of his nose. His scar was bleeding. He swayed back toward the portal behind him. "And you would have stopped me from any dealings with the Fae."

"For good reason – they are _not _to be trusted. Not ever."

Harry took a deep breath and the slow burning coals in his eyes died. Cool emerald, Lily Potter's eyes, reclaimed his sight. _Why is that worse?_ Albus thought, struck by his gaze. _Harry, you poor man, what has happened to your soul…?_

"What's done is done." Harry shrugged. "I used the Fae and the nature of the Nevernever against Voldemort and his blasted Horcruxes. He won't be bothering us anymore."

Dumbledore frowned. "What did you do precisely?"

Harry grinned. "Summoned something from the edge of the Nevernever, something that you have to pay with a soul for its services. Luckily, Voldemort left his just lying around."

Something wasn't right. Albus didn't like the way Harry was grimacing – clearly in pain. And if this summoning was done, why had the portal not faded away? The price had been paid, had it not? What he understood of the rules of magic as it was used by the White Council – and that was more than any Wizarding World wizard alive – the bargain had been set and finalised. As Harry said, it should be over. No, something was not right.

The truth of the matter struck Albus all at once. The pieces fell into place, the curtain was pulled back, but by then it was far too late. From the moment Harry had set his plan into action it had been far too late. The Elder Wand almost fell from Albus' old hand as the realisation struck him, his face slackened, and he felt every one of his years like a punch in the gut.

At the same moment Harry raised a hand to his bleeding scar. He saw the look on Dumbledore's face and something he had only suspected, something he had gambled with through all of this, became all too clear.

"Oh," he said, and actually smiled. A small, hopeless chuckle escaped him. "Oh damn."

Behind him a lance of pure white flame, a thin rope of hellfire, burst from the darkness within the portal and wrapped itself around his neck. Harry choked as he was pulled back, terrible understanding scarring his face, and a strain on his very soul making him scream to Hell and Heaven for death.

He disappeared into the fiery darkness and the portal snapped closed. Harry's last, desperate scream echoed in the broken silence all across the grounds of Hogwarts.

And then he was gone.

Albus Dumbledore fell to one knee. For all that mattered, he had just watched Harry Potter die. A thousand thoughts numbed his mind to any immediate action. Above all, he had just had a terrible suspicion confirmed. Not that it mattered now. Not that it could matter ever again.

Yet it was confirmed just the same. Harry had been the last Horcrux of Lord Voldemort. His soul had not been entirely his own, not since that night in Godric's Hollow some sixteen years ago.

_Oh Harry…_

No, Harry and Voldemort had been joined as equals even to the intermingling of their very souls.

The bargain Harry had struck for Voldemort's life had, in every sense of the word, _damned_ them both.

*~*~*~*

**_A/N:_**_ So, initial thoughts, folks? Fans of Potter or Dresden (or both) let me know what you think. Watch this space for updates, both here and for my other stories. There shall be awesomeness on the way. I'll give a firm nod to the fools over at **darklordpotter** for their thoughts before I posted it up here for the world at large. The abuse they hurl my way is always extremely beneficial. _


	3. Chapter 2: Dreadful Starlight

_**Disclaimer:**__ I'm pissing in two ponds now, and neither belongs to me._

_**A/N:**__ For those who haven't read Dresden, I've included explanations and, apart from everyday facts, for the most part spoiler free. I reckon the hardest thing about this story will be bastardizing the two unique systems of magic into something I can pass off as existing within the same world. Oh well – read and review! Cheers to the __**DLP**__ clowns for proof-reading, as well._

_All the best,_

_Joe_

_

* * *

_

_**Chapter Two – Dreadful Starlight**_

Something had gone wrong.

Par for the course 'round these parts, I know, but something had gone _really_ wrong.

Wrong enough that the Merlin had called an emergency meeting of the entire White Council, the Captain and Commanders of the Wardens, and every wizard or apprentice worth a drop of magic across the seven continents, deep beneath the streets of Edinburgh.

Yeah, Scotland. The heart and soul of the Old World – where magic thrived in centuries past alone in the wild… What better place for wizards? Great and powerful ley lines crisscrossed one another beneath most of the land, and specifically under Edinburgh. Supernatural energies and outstanding magic coursing through the veins of the planet.

The milk of the cosmos flowing from the oldest _foci_ known to wizard kind.

My name is Harry Blackstone Cop—but no, the last few years have taught me not to be so blasé with something as dangerous as a name. My name is Dresden. Harry Dresden, P.I., look me up in the Yellow Pages under '_Wizards_' – I'm the only one there. Serving greater Chicago and surrounds for more years than I ever thought I'd be alive.

It was hot beneath the castle in Edinburgh. Too hot for this time of year. My grey Warden's cloak hung heavy against my frame – a dead weight.

"Consensum habemus?"

All the assembled wizards in their various dark robes and mixed blue, gold and scarlet stoles mumbled assent. The Merlin commenced the meeting without the normal formalities being observed. _Always interesting. _The game was most definitely afoot – and if the journey here through the Nevernever had been any true measure, then whatever was wrong had something to do with the blasted faeries.

"Then let us proceed," Arthur Langtry, the Merlin, said softly in fluent Latin. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark blue eyes and a long, flowing silver beard. He stood at one of the seven podiums erected on the stage at the head of the meeting hall.

One of seven. The other six were held by wizards of the highest caliber – four men and two women, standing either side of the Merlin. The Senior Council, upon which the world turned and grunts like me fought and died for.

I eyed my old mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, standing grim and tired, looking old and worn. He gave me a hesitant nod, and I caught an air of warning in his gaze. Oh yeah, something was up. Next to McCoy stood Gregori Cristos and Ancient Mai. On the other side of the Merlin were Joseph Listens-to-Wind, Martha Liberty and, hidden in the shadows and completely unobtrusive, the most mysterious of the lot, Rashid.

The Gatekeeper.

I cast an eye over the hundreds of assembled wizards and apprentices in the room, as well as the envoys from various supernatural parties seated off to the side, and watched them watching the Senior Council up on stage. Very few settled their gaze on Rashid for long, if at all. It took a certain kind of know-how to see and _keep_ seeing the Gatekeeper.

His face was hidden deep within the cowls of his hooded robes. Yet I could feel the man's eyes, one of them constructed of metal and able to perceive the future, regarding me from within the shadows.

I shifted my weight uncomfortably, wishing I wasn't so noticeable and tall at the heart of the room. I'd just as soon not have Rashid's attention. There were still debts to be paid there – to him… and to the Council.

It was the Gatekeeper who was tasked with guarding this world from influence beyond the Outer Gates, and the awful creatures known as _Outsiders_. The Outer Gates are the furthest boundaries – way way beyond the Nevernever – of all the universes across existence.

Well, perhaps not _beyond_ the Nevernever. The theory goes that they exist as part of the Nevernever, as the final, outlying regions of all that can or ever will exist. A bit about the Nevernever… It's what we surly and contemplative wizards call the entirety of the realm of spirit. It isn't a physical place, with geography and weather patterns and so on. It's a shadow world, a magical realm, and its substance is as mutable as thought. It has a lot of names, like the Other Side and the Next World, and it contains within it just about any kind of spirit realm you can imagine, somewhere. Heaven, Hell, Olympus, Elysium, Tartarus, Gehenna—you name it, and it's in the Nevernever somewhere.

"I shall come straight to the point," the Merlin said. His tone was almost frail, belying the true strength of the man considered to be the strongest wizard alive. "Safe passage through the Nevernever, specifically through the provinces of Winter, can no longer be guaranteed."

Well, I'd been expecting that. Whispered murmurings broke out amongst the assembled members of the Council. While troubling, to say the least, there were other ways through the Nevernever, and new paths had been forged before. This news did not warrant the haste or size of this meeting. Something was _still_ very wrong.

No one was saying it, but I could taste _war_ in the air. But with who? Or, more likely, with what?

"Messengers have been sent to the Summer and Winter Courts," the Merlin continued. "None have returned. There is great upheaval within the Nevernever. The source of which can be traced to much graver news." The old man paused for effect. His gaze slid over mine without so much as a glare. "The Accords of the Wild have been broken."

_The Accords of the Wild have been broken…_

Oh.

Shit.

I felt _that_ announcement like a thump in the gut – like a punch of hot flame from my own blasting rod. _Whoa… _So the rumours were true. Now the size of the meeting was beginning to make a whole lot more sense. I ran over quickly what I knew of the hidden community of wizards – a community of magical folk hidden under veils of secrecy that, even for the Old World, were almost absurd. It took me about three seconds. I knew very little.

"Warden Soren, if you please," the Merlin said, gesturing to one of the grey-cloaked men at the front of the stage.

I didn't know the man, but I recognized the object he held in his hands. A small crystal once carried by a warden who had tried to kill me – more than once. He walked up on stage and placed the crystal on the podium before the Merlin. Then he lit a candle and placed his hands over the flame, muttering a garbled incantation.

Light streaked from the candle into the crystal, a vast array as colourful as any rainbow. A beam of clear silver light rose in a cone above the entire stage from the tip of the crystal, forming a haze of sparkling radiance, at the heart of which appeared a spinning globe of the Earth.

Some of the younger wizards in attendance muttered appreciation at the special effects. I'd seen it before, and was less impressed.

"As we know," Soren said, brushing his slick black hair away from his forehead as he spoke. "Wild Wizards are primarily located in various communities throughout the Old World. The red dots over Europe and the United Kingdom indicate known locations of their towns, their structured governments – Ministries of Magic, they call them – and the yellow dots are suspected locations."

Soren paused and waved his hand over the candle. The spinning globe changed, the image zoomed in, and we were looking at a large map of England, Wales and Scotland. There were suddenly a lot more red dots and at least three times as many yellow. London was a hotspot of red, and there was a strange collection of yellow hovering just southwest of where we sat in Edinburgh. Curious.

"After the Second World War," Soren continued, "it was learnt by the Council that a wild wizard named Grindelwald had been responsible for a significant amount of the damage caused during the conflict. Had he not been stopped, it is likely the war would have continued far longer than it did. The Council decided after the war that the use of magic during the conflict by the Wandwavers' had repeatedly violated at least half the Laws of Magic. To avoid another conflict, between our world and theirs, representatives of the Wandwavers' Ministries and the White Council signed the Accords of the Wild, and Grindelwald was executed."

This was all history. I knew of it vaguely, as did most wizards. No one ever expected to have much to do with the Wandwavers. They really were well hidden, behind clouds and clouds of magic. I had never met one – beyond the Merlin, I didn't know anybody that had. Although I suspected the Gatekeeper may have.

I poured myself a glass of water from the jar on my table, wondering where this was going. After the war with the Red Court vampires, our forces were still circling the drain. The Merlin couldn't be pushing for war. Could he? A true magical war, a wizard's war, hadn't happened in centuries. Soren was talking again.

"Thirty years later and another Wandwaver began to cause trouble throughout their hidden world. His motives were unclear, yet it was learnt at the time that the Wild Wizard nearly succeeded in overthrowing their society here in the United Kingdom. The situation degenerated quickly – this internal war was very nearly revealed to the non-magical community." Soren paused for unnecessary dramatic licence. "The Wild Wizard was killed, or so it was said, and the rest of the Wandwavers abided by the Accords and the policy of non-interference with the world at large. The honored Merlin met with representatives of their government at the time, and was assured the threat had been neutralized."

The Merlin nodded. "Thank you, Warden." Soren removed his crystal and returned to his guard duty at the front of the stage. "Troubling indeed. The Council has learned that once again there have been severe abuses of the Laws of Magic, specifically spellwork designed to induce enthrallment, committed by prominent and powerful Wild Wizards. The Accords have been tested and broken thrice since their inception, and thus no longer stand whole. Wild magic, unknown magic, has run rampant across this land and the cost has fractured the balance of the Faerie Courts, and plunged the Nevernever into chaos."

Tense silence followed the Merlin's strong words. I thought it might be time to say something myself, but the Gatekeeper stepped forward into the dim light, clearing his throat.

"Their use of magic does not always abide by the rules we understand. It is untamed and often reckless. Yet just because it can't be explained does not mean there is _no_ rational explanation for the seemingly vast differences between how we use our gift, and how they use theirs." His tone was light, curious, like a whisper shouted out loud.

"Yes, thank you, Rashid," the Merlin said, waving the man silent as politely as he could. "The fact still stands that the Wandwavers, or the Wild Wizards – call them what you will – have brought this calamity down upon us. It is time they were brought to task over the numerous breaches of our Accords."

The Merlin really knew how to work a crowd. A lot of the members were shifting uncomfortably in their seats, under the pale glow of the candlelight from every table, and frowning through dark and contemplative brows. No one quite knew what to do, or had much to do at all, with Wild Wizards. They kept themselves so secluded and locked away that I hadn't given them much thought since before moving to Chicago.

"From what we know," Ebenezar McCoy said, shuffling forward from behind his podium. My old mentor was bald safe for a few tufts of silver-white hair. He sported his own neatly trimmed beard. "The Accords were broken by a self-styled Dark Lord of Wild magic. The boy who busted the damned Nevernever was fighting a murderer – a Wild Wizard who, from all accounts, had no trouble at all disregarding _all_ the Laws of Magic. It's been sixteen years since any of us had any contact with their world, Alfred. Let's not piss them off until this is a bit more clear. "

"Right," I said, a touch loudly. My deep affirmative spread to the tables around me, earning me a few frowns and scowls. I decided it was time to say my piece. I clicked my fingers twice, standing, and hooked a thumb at myself. "We're not gearing up for a wizard's war, are we? Because that would be seven kinds of stupid."

The Merlin glared down at me, his expression becoming several shades cooler. "Warden Dresden." He paused. Invoking all manner of malice and hate into the silence. There was much mutual dislike between us. "You have something to say?"

I always did. And it always ended in bruises and headaches, if not a few broken bones and internal bleeding. "We can't vilify an entire community of wizards, Merlin, based on the actions of a few."

"The Accords stated non-interference with the Nevernever. That is the province of our wizardry, Dresden." The Merlin stamped his staff against the cool stone. It echoed around the baffled, muttering room. "A boy wizard, one _Harry_ Potter, summoned an Elder Demon to the mortal world and used it to consume a fellow mortal. Not only that, but if the reports are to be believed, this boy assumed the mantle of the Winter Knight."

_What!_

"I was offered that gig," I said flippantly, with a shrug, to hide my shock. "Long hours, crappy pay, and a murderous Faerie Queen riding me into the ground made me turn it down."

"What would you have us do, Warden Dresden?" Martha Liberty asked from her podium. "We send messengers to the Wild Wizards, and they are offered naught but lip-service before the next Warlock takes it upon himself to disregard the Laws of Magic. It is long past time that _all_ wizards were brought under the governing strength of the White Council."

"So we're not going to talk to them before we press our agenda?" I asked, feeling the familiar resentment for the powerful and often heavy-handed techniques of the Senior Council. "I submit that we abide by the Accords, even if they have not, and request a meet to understand just what's gone on to make Winter turn tail and run deeper into the Nevernever."

There were murmurs of agreement from across the entire hall. Nobody wanted more conflict. It was foolish of the Merlin to push it… but then was he? You didn't get to be the Merlin by playing the fool. I had known the man long enough to suspect that there was some other game afoot here…

But I had made my choice.

I had invoked our end of the Accords. Despite however the Wild Wizards used magic, ignoring the Accords now could have some serious magical consequences for the Senior Council, and the Merlin himself. Binding magical contracts were not something to be disregarded lightly.

The Merlin knew that.

And I knew that… better than most.

I let out a deep breath slowly. Why had I just angered the most powerful wizard on the planet?

Oh yeah, because a one-eyed fortuneteller had told me to. Hell's frickin' bells.

* * *

"Your played your part well, Dresden," the Gatekeeper said.

We stood together on one of the balconies of the castle, overlooking the city below against the light of the moon and stars. It was gone midnight, the streets were busy, a stream of cars trailed along the motorway, and a cool breeze ruffled our wizardly robes. The meeting had ended as well as to be expected, with a coalition of high ranking wizards opting to seek out the governing bodies of the Wild Wizards and demand an explanation.

"You going to tell me why I had to openly back the Merlin into a corner?" I rubbed the stubble on my chin with care. "There's no love lost, to be sure, but I try to keep myself off his radar wherever possible."

At seven feet tall, the Gatekeeper was one of only a handful of wizards taller than myself. When he lowered his hood, I beheld a scarred and leathery face, complete with that ball bearing in his missing eye socket. It was the face of an old man, a man who had been burnt and a man who hid in shadows, perceiving the endless pathways of the future.

"You did it," Rashid said, "because I asked you to, and you trusted me. You did it because you would have done it anyway, and you did it because I cannot be seen to have my own agenda in this matter. The Senior Council must be seen as whole, especially with times as they are… and what is to come."

That sounded as ominous as anything I had heard tonight. "What's to come then?"

"Watch the sky, young wizard."

"Eh?" Suffer my eloquence, Rashid.

The Gatekeeper turned his good eye toward me. Wizards avoid direct eye contact wherever possible. It can lead to an uncomfortable trick known as the Soul Gaze. To look too long into another's eyes, for more than a few seconds, would trigger it. Things seen in a Soul Gaze could not be unseen – and were always as fresh as that first glance.

"If you believe in such avenues of prophecy that exist, Dresden, you will watch the sky and count to ten."

I blinked, beginning a slow count in my head. The stars were dim and few against the lights of the city shining bright into the night. A dome of manmade illumination dimming the heavens. _Five… Six…_ The breeze was cool but the air was humid. A distinct reminder that Summer was pressing an advantage against the Nevernever, infringing on the mortal world. What was Winter thinking, abandoning their outposts? _Eight… Nine…_

"Ten," the Gatekeeper whispered, and part of the sky exploded.

I saw it happen. Hell's bells, I even thought for a minute that my count had _made_ it happen.

A torrent of blue and gold light, tinged silver-white and as bright as the full moon – twice as large as the full moon – exploded across the dark sky. At first I thought an X-Wing must have just discovered a weakness in the Death Star, as the fireworks were huge in the sky but looked distant, far away and beyond the moon. It was a detonation in space.

"A supernova," Rashid said. He sounded sad, tired, as if the entire world had just ended. "So prophecy rings true a sixth time… Behold a stellar explosion, Dresden, of a star whose size would reach from here to the clouds of Jupiter. Betelgeuse, some five hundred light years away, as we measure time and distance across such vast, empty space, has ended its life."

The light of the explosion burned across the night sky. Purples bleeding into reds, electric blue and gaseous clouds of far away dust. There was no sound, not a whisper, yet the biggest explosion ever witnessed by man _raged_ overhead. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

It hurt when I blinked – I'd been staring at the damn thing for two minutes straight. Strange thoughts ran through my head, mingled with more than a little apprehension and fear…

"I'm no physics buff, Rashid, but isn't that star some distance away? Wouldn't it take more than the time we've been up here for those fireworks to reach us?"

Rashid smiled. "The star exploded over five hundred years ago. It will burn in our sky for a year or more." His smile turned grim, almost sickly. "And the fireworks reach us today, Dresden, to mark the fall of the Sixth Dread Barrier."

That didn't sound fun. I hesitated to ask, knowing full well that something wicked – and no doubt powerful – was heading down my road. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I had my spelled leather duster around my shoulders. "Go on then, hit me with it."

Rashid was silent for a long, desperate moment. With a start that chilled me through I realized that he was scared, _terrified_, and barely mastering his fear. If Rashid was afraid, then we were all in trouble.

"There were once Seven Dread Barriers, Dresden. Seven seals that held the Outer Gates in place."

"And six have fallen?"

"Six have fallen." Rashid nodded. "The remnants of that long dead star blazing across the heavens mark the Sixth. One Barrier now remains – the last and most fragile. Should it fall, the Outsiders will no longer be restricted to the farthest reaches of the Nevernever. They will be here. They will descend to devour the cosmos." Never had I felt such a dark and terrible gaze as the one Rashid considered me with just then. "And they will come for you first, Dresden, because you, and you alone, can kill them."

My throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper. "What's this got to do with the kid the Merlin was talking about? With Harry Potter?"

Rashid shook his head, looking once again at the supernova lighting up the night sky, brighter than the full moon and then some. It was an awesome, truly unique, sight to behold. "He is the last Dread Barrier," the Gatekeeper said finally. "The Boy Who Lived, Dresden. He survived a terrible death curse, withstood eternity, and assumed the mantle of the Seventh Barrier – inadvertently. He has no idea just what he is."

"And how did he do that?"

"The nature of the Seventh Barrier is such that it was meant to be unbreakable – and untouchable." Rashid paused. "The Seventh Dread Barrier was stitched into the fabric of an immutable mortal law. The Law of Death. We all must die, our times will all come, one way or another. The wizards who designed the Barrier long ago understood this… however magic has evolved since then. It has been abused and twisted. Harry Potter should have died many years ago, and many times since. He is the exception that proves the rule – his soul is ensnared within another – and neither can live while the other survives. Thus, the fabric is torn, the Seventh Dread Barrier can be brought down if Potter is destroyed."

"So let me try and keep this straight," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose to ward away a headache. "The kid's angered the entire Council, broken the Accords that keep two magical worlds from war, he's the Winter Knight, and all that stands between the whole world and an orgy of Outsiders punching through the Outer Gates? That about right?"

"He is also lost deep within the Nevernever. I do not know the mind of Winter, but the balance between the Faerie Courts has been tipped in favour of Summer – all because of what Potter did. Now Winter has turned its full might against the nether realms of the Nevernever, seeking the power of the Winter Knight to restore balance… before it is too late."

That was a lot to take in. A _helluva_ lot to take in. Which monumental screw-up was going to kill us all first? "The Sixth Barrier – that star – was one of seven locks, yes, so what happened to locks one through five? Hell's bells, Rashid, why so much doom and gloom all of a sudden?"

Rashid shrugged. His soft-spoken British accent was near maddening in its calm inflection, belying the seriousness of our conversation. "They have collapsed over the centuries, as their creators always expected they would. All save the last. The First Dread Barrier fell alongside the city of Atlantis. The Second Barrier when the Courts of Faerie split to what we know today, fracturing the nature of the Nevernever forever. The Third Barrier to the Eternal War between Heaven and Hell, sometime around the sixteenth century. The Fourth Dread Barrier to the Great Wars of Mankind, and to the holocaust only sixty short years ago." Rashid sighed. "And the Fifth Barrier to you, Warden Dresden, with the death of the Summer Lady Aurora before the Stone Table."

I blinked. That was some time ago, in the last near-war between the Summer and Winter Courts. It was only by the skin of my teeth that I'd kind of saved the world, stopped an all-out faerie war, and only a few people had to die for it. It's usually a good day when only a _few_ die.

"No one told me – _you_ didn't tell me," I said, sticking an angry finger in Rashid's face.

"Would it have changed anything had you known?" the Gatekeeper asked. "No, Dresden, you were better off in ignorance. The cost of those years still weighs heavily on your soul. So much pain and death, the loss of love, why add to that burden?" Rashid chuckled – it was a sad, lonely sound. "Although, even I did not foresee the Sixth Dread Barrier falling within our lifetimes. Not until it was almost upon us this evening."

I waved a hand across the sky, across the brilliant schemes of course blue light. A gaseous cloud of wonder – the mark of the dead star. "Well, my keen investigative mind thinks it may have fallen."

"Indeed. And it changes… many things."

"So what do we do?" I asked. "This kid Potter needs to be protected. Is Winter after his head?"

"Yes." Rashid paused. I sensed uncertainty. "He is, for the moment, beyond our reach."

"I know my way around the Never…" I trailed away, giving it some thought. Quests into the Nevernever were not to be taken lightly. The creatures stalking even the outer realms of Winter were now free to attack foolish young wizards who thought they could fight the supernatural and live. I had enemies in the Nevernever – powerful, dangerous enemies.

"The Senior Council won't sit by and let this all play out without some game plan," I said. "You, Rashid, you're the Gatekeeper – what will you do?"

"The Council has tasked me in seeking the aid of both Summer and Winter to forge a new lock on the Outer Gates. The Outsiders breaking through will not benefit either Court. However, Summer are pressing their advantage. It is hot out tonight, no?" Rashid stroked his chin in thought. "As it stands, neither Court is in any position to even want to help the other."

"Then what's our move?"

Rashid cocked an eyebrow. "Our move, Dresden?"

I shrugged. "I broke one of your locks. I'll fix it."

The Gatekeeper inclined his head. "The Merlin would have me manipulate you into forging ahead through the Nevernever, seeking the Seventh Dread Barrier, and likely perishing in the attempt. Even your penchant for survival may not see you through that. Hence, why I asked you to defy his will this evening before the meeting."

"Just another nail in my coffin." I was running out of space to hammer those in.

"Yet I think our efforts are better concentrated on finding out all we can about Harry Potter, and understanding what fate has led him beyond our reach." The Gatekeeper's metal eye flashed. "Besides, I have a feeling he may return to us on his own."

There was an air of warning in what may have just been prophecy from the Gatekeeper. Still, he had warned me against risking the Nevernever, and it appeared we were both contradicting the Merlin to do so. If there was any man that could get away with it… The Merlin and I had a history – one that did not shine favourably upon my good health. There was bitterness, anger, and a _helluva_ lot of politicking between Arthur Langtry and me.

"Kid's got family?" I asked.

"No. But he is a prominent member of the Wild Wizard community. Come with me tonight, Dresden, through a forbidden forest and through some of the strongest magical wards every constructed."

I shifted my weight against my oaken staff. The blasting rod hanging from my belt suddenly felt like it might come in handy. I hadn't brought my old revolver to this rodeo, but now I wish I had its comfortable weight tucked into a pocket. A lot of supernatural beings didn't account for six chambers of smokin' hot lead. At least my shield bracelet was good to go.

"World is in six kinds of mortal peril, check. The Merlin scheming to remove a thorn from his side, check. Forbidden forest no doubt home to dark creatures, check." I tightened my grip on my staff. "Deadly ward schemes, check. And one dumb kid lost in the Nevernever with the fate of the world in his hands… _check_. Why the forest, Rashid?"

The ashes of a once-massive star, burning and _burning _some five hundred or more light years away, eclipsed the light of the moon. Such distance beggared the mind. The interstellar fireworks overhead cast an unearthly pall over the whole world. It would burn in the sky for a year or more to come, Rashid had said.

"The forest is old, with long-forgotten paths through the Nevernever. The castle beyond it is old, as well. A place of learning, Dresden, a school of witchcraft and wizardry – of magic refined into something almost foreign to what we understand."

The Gatekeeper regarded me as he replaced his hood over his head, hiding that metal eye within the shadows.

"It is there we must go to learn of Harry Potter. It is there we seek a man named Albus Dumbledore."

* * *

_**A/N:**__ So, there we go, what do you think? Favourable to folk who have read Dresden, and those who haven't? Next update is on its way, as always. I'll be updating __**Wastelands of Time**__ next, some 3,400 words already written there, so look out for that. Cheers,_

_Joe_


	4. Chapter 3: Soulgaze

_**Disclaimer:**_ _Vinay, you amazing bastard! P=NP!_

_**A/N:** Latest chapter of this tale, folks. Keeping with the theme, it is from Dresden's perspective - at Hogwarts! What hilarity will ensue? Or are things already too dire for hilarity? Surely not. Read and review, peeps, read and review._

_-Joe_

_

* * *

_

_**Chapter 3 - Soulgaze**_

"There are a handful of locations on this planet, Dresden," Rashid said. "A handful of... special places where the Nevernever and our reality blur. Where there is no gate, no portal needed to cross between the two realms. You merely walk from one into the other, like a dream of a dream – if you know the right path."

"Sounds dangerous," I said, ever one for stating the obvious. Why was he telling me this?

"Very much so, Warden." The Gatekeeper laughed – a soft, melodious sound that whispered through the dark trees and creeping undergrowth all around us.

From Edinburgh we had entered the Nevernever, braving an old path through one of the Summer realms. Well-worn yet with a vaguely menacing air, as if unseen eyes were watching from the shadows. It was hot and uncomfortable. Rashid led the way, and I followed keeping a hand firmly attached to my blasting rod. It didn't pay – ever – to be careless in the Nevernever.

I had my enemies in this realm, as did any wizard worth his salt and magic.

Only we weren't in the Nevernever anymore, I realised with a start. The trees were the same, the air was still humid and stifling, but overhead in the sky glimpsed through the thick canopy I could see the supernova – the Sixth Dread Barrier, a torrent of blue and gold radiance – lighting up the night sky.

"Huh."

"Yes?" Rashid's metal eye glinted at me in the darkness.

"Uh... nothing. I was just expecting it to hurt, or something. What's to stop some of the nastier stuff in the Nevernever crossing over whenever they please?" I had an idea I wasn't going to like the answer to that question.

"Nothing."

Hell's bells.

"But fear not. There are protections. Particularly in this forest and surrounding the castle up ahead. The wild wizards, as we call them, are quite adept at unusual warding schemes and magical shielding."

"Is that so?" My understanding of the Old World wild magic was slim, and I would've given a pretty penny to have had Bob, my compendium skull of forbidden knowledge, handy for what was to come. "What do you know about them, Rashid? Who is this Albus Dumbledore we're on our way to see?"

"I would have thought there would be other thoughts on your mind, Warden Dresden."

There were a thousand thoughts on my mind. Already this was feeling like one of those cases where nothing was as it seemed, and what _was_ as it seemed was liable to rip my heart from my chest or freeze the very liquid in my eyes. I shuddered. Damn Faeries.

"Such as?"

Rashid placed his hand firmly against the smooth, ageless bark of a massive oak. The forest all around us was dark, a thin layer of mist twisting amongst the undergrowth and gnarled roots of the ancient wooden sentinels. "You did not blink an eye when I said that you, and you alone, can kill the Outsiders."

Ah. "No, no I did not."

"He Who Walks Behind has his gaze on you." There was a tremor of fear even in Rashid's calm, cool voice.

"I've no time to worry over impending doom," I quipped. "Be they Lovecraftian horrors or not."

"Yet the circumstances of your birth afford you a special power." Rashid sighed. "A power I believe can also be found in Harry Potter. Although how a wild wizard can be expected to survive a battle against Walkers is quite unfathomable."

"From what I've heard so far, the kid's got balls."

"Yes." Rashid turned and continued walking. In the distance, there was the sound of heavy hoofs clopping against the forest floor. "We are outstaying our welcome here. Come, let us continue."

The forest was full of unseen scurrying creatures. I progressed alongside the Gatekeeper with an increasing certainty that something was about to disembowel me. At one point, I thought I saw a flash of headlights in the distance, as well as the choking rumbling of a dying engine, but I must've been seeing things...

Eventually I did begin to glimpse lights through the trees, and as the forest thinned a dark silhouette against the starry night sky. My breath caught in my throat as, with the Betelgeuse supernova ablaze overhead, I took my first look at the ancient, powerful majesty of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy.

A thousand-year old castle, alive and standing proud against the night. I could _feel_ the raw magic in the air. Ley lines of monumental energy coursed beneath the ground. There was also a lingering smell that was terribly familiar. _Sulphur_. Dark magic had been cast here recently as well as in the past. The stink of that particular avenue of magic... always lingered.

"Hell's bells..." I muttered.

Rashid nodded. "Indeed. Welcome to Hogwarts, Warden Dresden."

* * *

A man with a lantern met us just inside the enormous oaken mahogany doors of the school. He was a short, wheezing man who shuffled about as he walked. His thin grey hair and brown coat gave him a moth-eaten look, and a red-eyed cat twisted about his ankles.

"Argus Filch, caretaker" the man said. "Come along then. The Headmaster has been expecting you."

"He has?" I asked.

Filch grunted and Rashid simply nodded, apparently expecting no less.

Filch led us up through the castle, and whether it was just late or uninhabited, we did not cross paths with any other people. I had expected one or two young apprentice wizards in training, given that this was supposed to be a school. Instead there were sights far stranger. Moving staircases and bewitched portraits. Odd apparitions that could only have been spirits...

Yeah, I definitely wasn't in Kansas anymore. Or even Chicago and all the myriad of weird and deadly supernatural forces that converged on my town.

I was tempted to open my Wizard's Sight upon the castle, but with the things I'd seen so far, and given how close we were to the Nevernever – I could almost taste the faerie realms hovering just beyond ken – I didn't dare. There were a lot of things in my head I'd have rather not seen. No need to add to that pile of fond regrets.

I counted the floors and winding staircases as we rose through the silent castle. On the seventh, the caretaker ambled along away from the stairs and off down a corridor, that weird mangy cat still prowling around his feet. Rashid moved as silent as a ghost just behind him and I followed, growing more and more curious.

We came to a stop in front of a large, grotesque statue of what looked like one of the lesser-fae. A screaming gargoyle.

"Pepper Imps," Filch muttered.

The gargoyle came to life and leapt aside. I raised my blasting rod, shifting my weight against my oaken staff, ready to shoot a beam of fire as hot as liquid steel through the creature, but there was no need. I didn't recognise the magic, but it was a simple animation spell, nothing more.

Behind the gargoyle, the wall split in two to reveal a spiral stone staircase that began to rise much like an elevator. Filch grunted a farewell, motioned us up the staircase, and shuffled off with cat and lantern in hand.

"There's some serious power in this castle, Rashid."

The Gatekeeper chuckled softly. "Wait until you meet the man at the top of this staircase, Dresden."

We rode up the elevator-stairs and the gargoyle slid back into place behind us, sealing us in. At the top of the stairway was a highly polished oak door with a brass knocker.

Rashid knocked soundly three times.

"Please come in, gentlemen," a soft, old voice whispered, and the doors swung open as if by magic.

I was taken aback by what I assumed was the Headmaster's office. A dozen sights and sounds hit me all at once, and a heavy smell of roasting coffee beans and cinnamon eclipsed it all. My first thought was that it was just so... _wizardly_. The walls were covered in those animated portraits, as well as a collection of weathered tomes and an old, pointed hat. A sword with a gem-encrusted hilt hung in a glass display case. There were dozens of spindly-legged tables holding papers and curious silver instruments.

On a golden perch sat a regal and intelligent looking bird. It was a phoenix, if I knew my Nevernever bestiary, and I did, but what it was doing in this office, in our realm, was beyond my understanding.

All of that paled in comparison to the man seated behind the enormous, claw-footed desk.

For a moment, I thought it was the Merlin himself, and that this had been some sort of fiendish, elaborate hoax. But it was not the Merlin. The man seated behind the desk held himself differently, wore flamboyant robes, and there was a glint of weary kindness in his eyes behind half-moon spectacles.

He rose to meet us as we stepped across the room. Rashid clasped his hand and a genuine laugh was shared between the two mysterious men.

"It is good to see you, Albus Dumbledore," the Gatekeeper said. "Time... it is a wasteland, no, in which we move blindly. It has been too long."

The old man, who radiated sheer power, chuckled and, still grasping Rashid's hand, simply smiled. "Indeed. I only wish it was under happier circumstance. You are here because the Accords were broken, and one of my own breached the Nevernever."

"In part, I am. Yet there is graver news still, Professor."

"Hmm, yes, the Dread Barrier burning across the night sky. I must say, the timing cannot be mere coincidence."

Rashid paused for a heavy moment, his face veiled within that dark hood. Then he found his voice. "Why am I not surprised that you know of the Barriers? No matter. You are right, of course. The Sixth Barrier has fallen... only one remains between this world and the Old Ones."

Dumbledore's smile didn't fade but the glint, the twinkle in his eyes, seemed to dim. He turned to face me. "Is this the man you spoke of in our correspondence?"

_Correspondence?_

I was careful not to meet the old man's eyes directly. To do so would risk a soulgaze – something that wizards (well, wizards from my neck of the woods, not these wild-wizards, as far as I knew) took very seriously. A soulgaze was a power to be found in the meeting of the eyes. That one look could transform a simple gaze into a highly personalised and revealing admission of the other person's soul. It worked both ways. And once seen, it was never forgotten. It stayed fresh and clear in the mind until the day you died.

Which was all good and well when it was between two generally honest and good people. But when it was with an ancient sentinel of concentrated evil, it could drive a wizard mad. I'd been there. Done that. Cried myself to sleep. I didn't know enough about this man to trust in a soulgaze. I was tempted, though, sorely tempted. As far as I knew, he was the first wild-wizard I'd ever met.

"Harry Dresden," Rashid said. "This is Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts."

Dumbledore extended his hand and I shook it carefully. A man his age could snap easily. I was more than a little surprised by the firm grip he returned in kind. "A pleasure, my boy," he said.

"Good to meet you."

Dumbledore quirked an eyebrow. "American, I see. This may be a first for Hogwarts, hmm. A White Council wizard, no less, from the great city of Chicago. May I offer you gentlemen a drink? Pumpkin juice? Butterbeer? Perhaps something a touch stronger?"

"Butterbeer?" I asked.

"There is no time," Rashid decided for us both. "Events are moving more swiftly than anticipated, Professor Dumbledore—

"Please, Rashid, call me Albus."

"—and the White Council moves against your secluded world even as we speak. Dresden and I are unofficial emissaries this evening. You should expect an envoy at your Ministry of Magic within the week, detailing a list of suspected and known breaches of our Accords."

Dumbledore removed a white paper bag from his pocket and pulled out a piece of hard candy. He popped it into his mouth. "Only a matter of time, I suppose. Lemon drop?"

I shrugged and took a sour piece. "Thanks."

"Have a seat, gentlemen, and let us discuss our options. There is far more at stake than I think we yet realise."

Rashid and I sat opposite Dumbledore, and I felt like I'd been called to task as the tall, ancient wizard stared at me from across the desk. We were of a height, Dumbledore and I, but I felt a lot smaller.

"Harry Potter," Rashid said, and a deafening silence fell like a blow from a sledgehammer. All of the various moving portraits stopped and the golden phoenix sung a soft, sad note to blanket the quiet.

"...yes." Dumbledore sighed. For the first time, he looked deeply troubled. And something else. Something... a lot more human. He looked heartbroken. "Yes, Rashid, Harry Potter. There wass no braver, no more tireless boy I had ever met. He did not deserve his fate."

"What fate?" I asked. Rashid tilted his unseen head within the folds of his hood toward me. I caught a glimpse of his metal eye. He said nothing, but I felt as if I'd spoken out of turn.

"The fate of a hero, Mr. Dresden," Dumbledore said. "The fate of acknowledged prophecy and the blurred boundaries between your world of the White Council and that of the Wandwavers, as I believe you call us."

As he said that, Dumbledore reached into a pocket of his colourful robes and withdrew a slender stick of dark wood. He rolled the wand, I suppose it was, between his fingers. I eyed the thin piece of wood with open curiosity. Then he tapped it smartly against his desk and a silver goblet appeared before and began to fill with a foamy liquid.

"Butterbeer, Mr. Dresden. If you try nothing else during your time with us, you must try this."

"How did you do that?" I asked. No incantation... no visible circles of power... just a tap of his wand. Everything I knew of magic didn't allow for such blatant _ease_ when conjuring. There was always a knack to it, sure, but I didn't even sense the old man's intent.

"Wizards a lot brighter than you and I have asked that question, Warden," Rashid said. "I doubt you will solve it tonight, and our time is limited, so..."

"Please, try for yourself," Dumbledore said, ignoring Rashid and fixing me with a steely gaze. I instinctively looked away, yet gingerly accepted the wand in his outstretched hand.

I expected a burst of power, a spark or two of bridled energy, but there was nothing. I held Dumbledore's wand as if it were a mere stick. And for all I could do with it, it may as well have been. I felt no power in the thing at all.

"Try an incantation," the old man suggested. "Something simple. Let me see... let me see... Ah, a lighting spell. _Lumos_!"

"That's Latin for light, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is." Dumbledore looked pleased.

I shrugged and raised the wand, pointed toward the high ceiling. "Okay. _Lumos!_"

Rashid shook his head and Dumbledore looked mildly disappointed when absolutely _zip_ happened. I couldn't use a wand, it seemed. A wild wizard wand. I gave it back to Dumbledore and patted my blasting rod reassuringly. Plenty of power in that rod. Nothing to be ashamed of.

"The gulf between our magics is vast and unexplored," the Headmaster said. "There are similarities and yet, even greater differences. It is strange, however, that history points a finger at the White Council – the original White Council – of having developed the first wands and delivering them to wild magic practioners. How strange that the White Council today is quite incapable of using their own creation."

"Is that true?" I asked. I felt a mild shock, glancing between Dumbledore and Rashid. "Rashid, is that true?"

The Gatekeeper shrugged. "There is some evidence to support that claim, Dresden, but it is not what we came here to discuss. Albus Dumbledore, very much depends on what we can learn of Harry Potter this evening. I would ask you to tell me of the boy."

Dumbledore did not seem put out by Rashid's powerful tone. If anything, it seemed to put the old man at ease. "Very well, Rashid, as you insist. Time is slipping away, is it not?" He chuckled. "There is one favour I would ask before I share that knowledge with you, however, one request in order to ensure the information shared tonight remains secret."

"You can trust me, Albus," Rashid began but Dumbledore waved his concern away.

"I know, old friend, I know."

"Then what is your request?"

Dumbledore paused and turned from Rashid to me. Again, I avoided his gaze. "I would like Mr. Dresden to look me in the eyes."

Rashid took a steadying breath, and his grip tightened around his staff. "You might not like what you see in this boy's eyes. He has seen things, Albus, done things... all for the greater good, to be sure, but some of those scars will have festered."

Hell's bells, Rashid was talking about the Laws of Magic I had broken. To kill a man. Forbidden magic, dangerous magic. It did corrupt the soul, but I wasn't that far gone. I had _never_ been that far gone! Besides, he didn't seem too worried about what I might see of Dumbledore's soul.

I could hear Rashid thinking in the silence that followed, tapping his fingers against the arm of his chair. Finally, he waved his hand. "Be quick about it then, Dresden."

"Wait a minute—"I began.

"The time we have left can be counted in minutes, Warden. Do not cross me on this."

I could sense a subtle anger in Rashid's words. He wasn't a man to ever display his emotions clearly, but I did not want to be on his bad side. I took a moment to think about it and then shrugged. "Very well."

I flicked my eyes up to Dumbledore's and this time did not look away.

I found out almost immediately that wild wizards were not immune to the soulgaze. I was pulled into the twinkling blue eyes of the Headmaster, beyond the half-moon spectacles and into the depths of a soul I had never quite felt before. I felt the soulgaze begin...

And then I felt power. Sheer, mind-blowing power.

It rocked me back in my chair as I gazed into the fires of Albus Dumbledore's soul and saw a life spent in light – in pure, crystal light – bathed in the duty and responsibility of directing his world away from darkness. I saw the old man robed in cerulean gemstones, atop a mighty pedestal, in a great, cloud-strewn cathedral. He held his wand aloft, and I saw that it was more than a mere stick, as it beget and ended _wars_.

It was holy.

It was death.

It was made of Elder and bathed in the blood of all who had carried it.

Yet Dumbledore had resisted the temptation, to an extent. There was a dark stain on the old man's past. A stain he had long since atoned for but had never quite forgiven himself. A whispered word... and endless regret...

_Ariana_.

Some distant loss.

And then there was darkness. The potential for darkness. Dumbledore had manipulated the lives of so many, outlived the evil of a rare few, and yet his capacity for good, for peace, always cast the darkness into shadow. He could have ruled the world, or at least a sizeable part of it, but instead he chose to teach, to guide young minds in morality and the ways of what was right.

I had never met a man quite like him. I felt the soulgaze ending, the light and aura of the Headmaster's soul withdrawing. The cord snapped between us and I pulled my gaze away, breathing hard, and knocked back in my chair.

A long moment shimmered in desperate regard. Rashid did not seem surprised at what had happened.

I managed to catch my breath and sit up a little straighter in my chair. Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"Mr Dresden," he said, placing a steadying hand against his cluttered desk. "You and Harry Potter are... very much alike." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Oh yes indeed, very much alike."

And a solitary tear rolled down the old man's cheek into his silvery beard.

* * *

_**A/N:** I'm not too sure about updates at the moment. I've got a shit-ton of uni work that I've ignored for the last few weeks, so that should probably take some sort of priority. Eh, oh well. Please read and review!_

_-Joe  
_


End file.
